Miscellany: Beer

In Baltimore, Emil (“Feets”) Cella, 35, who likes to eat hard crabs with the shells on, claimed a world’s beer-drinking record: one-half gallon in 16 seconds, thereby besting his previous (1935) record of 17 2/10 seconds.

Victim

In Savannah, Ga., Negro Charlie Williams, listed by the Tuskegee Institute as a lynching victim, was found working in a fertilizer factory. Said he: “I heard I was lynched but didn’t pay any attention to it.”

Balance

In Shreveport, La., while Winifred Parker, 18, was taking instruction in artificial respiration, her small niece lost her balance in shallows of a pool 25 feet away, drowned.

Appeal

In El Paso County, Colo., a rancher appealed for protection from a WPA project to build one of 22,000 outdoor toilets on his place. Answered the Colorado Public Utilities Commission: it had no jurisdiction. Reason: outdoor privies are not public utilities.

Otter

In Palo Alto, Calif., San Francisco’s Dr. Edna H. Fisher described to a Pacific Science Congress how an otter eats a clam. Description: after catching a clam the otter dives to the ocean floor, picks up a hefty rock, rises to the surface, floats on his back, balances the rock on his belly, clasps the clam between his forepaws, brings it down on the rock with a mighty whack. Shell broken, the otter eats.

Ferdinand

In New Orleans, Ferdinand, 1,000-lb. Jersey bull, pushed halfway through a fence hole, devoured a 100-lb. sack of cornmeal, got stuck. To Ferdinand’s rump,’ Owner William Lashley, lacking a bee, applied the live terminals of an electric battery, shocked Ferdinand free.

Franklin

On Long Island, American Bullfighter Sidney Franklin, decked out in cerise cape and a sheathed wooden sword, got ready to put on a bull-dodging act for a New York World’s Fair rodeo. On hand were representatives of the S. P. C. A., 200 spectators, a bull in a corral. When somebody opened the gate to the corral, nothing happened. To attract the bull’s attention cowboys did a dance in front of the gate. The bull didn’t budge. Steers were driven into the chute as decoys. The bull looked the other way. Twenty minutes later, after considerable prodding, the bull ambled down the chute, Fighter Franklin’s dodging act, described by the S. P. C. A. as eminently humane, got under way.